The chapter of a lifetime

This blog post differs slightly from the usual food/fitness focus. Instead it addresses a more personal topic: the next chapter of my life.

In six weeks' time, I'll be escaping the encroaching autumnal climes of England, in exchange for sunnier skies. I'll be jetting off to Thailand to teach English as a foreign language for six months. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure, but as you can imagine, I'm also massively pooing my pants! 6 months with no family or friends; just myself, my class and (hopefully) some other nice teacher friends.

If I could draw a graph to show the changing way I feel about it all, it would be erratically filled with extreme peaks immediately followed by plunging troughs, and repeated indefinitely.

I feel like it'll be a time of my life where I'll experience a mixture of feelings; very intense highs, excitement, adventure, adrenaline; but also fear, nerves, and loneliness.

Being so far away from those who know me best, I'll be free to be myself- it may reaffirm the person I think I am, or maybe I'll find out that actually I don't really know myself at all. It will be a time for self reflection and personal development, and I'm both anxious and excited to board the flight that will take me away.

I think it's so easy sometimes to get swept along with life; to get in to a career, settle down with a partner and follow the same life path lived by everyone else. I didn't want to get stuck in the rat race of daily life, which is why I have chosen to travel now while I'm young and commitment-free.

I plan on using this blog as a place to write about my journey; the exciting experiences, the people I encounter, the places I visit, the different foods I taste, and the wonderful settings I'm sure I'll find myself in. I plan on eating with the locals, going on spontaneous weekend trips to unfounded islands, practicing yoga in the mountains, tackling my long 'to-read' list, making life long friends...

But most of all, I want to be happy and content with being myself, by myself. That, I think, will be the largest challenge of all.

If you have any tips for a first-time traveller, or you've been to South East Asia, I would love to hear from you with any advice or guidance.

The chapter of a lifetime
Reviewed by Laura Bell
on
14:50:00
Rating: 5